Posts Tagged ‘Judea and Samaria’

Police closed in on a ring of Israeli and Palestinian Authority Arabs who smuggled eggs and sold to supermarkets in urban centers in Israel.

The gang raked in more than $2.5 million a year in the operation that stamped the eggs with forged approval. Police investigator Shai Kovnator noted, “The phenomenon of smuggling eggs from Palestinian Authority to Israel endangers human life.

“These are criminals who will stop at nothing to make money at the expense of the health of the public in Israel.”

A third U.S. church group that was set to vote this week on a motion to divest from companies doing business with Israel has decided to table the resolution for two years.

The Mennonite Church USA had planned to vote on whether to sell off stock in firms “known to be profiting from the ‘Occupation’ and from ‘destruction of life and property’ in Judea and Samaria.

At its national meeting Wednesday in Kansas City, Missouri, however, delegates voted 418-336, with 28 abstentions, to table the resolution until the next assembly convenes – two years from now, according to a church spokesperson.

The vote to divest would have been the third this week by a U.S. church group; two others (the Episcopal Church and the Cleveland synod of the United Church of Christ, both held in Salt Lake City) passed a motion to support the BDS (boycott, divest and sanctions) campaign against the State of Israel.

The churches voted to sever ties with companies that do business with firms that have any connection with Judea and Samaria, many of which employ Arabs from the Palestinian Authority who would lose their jobs as a result.

Malachi Moshe Rosenfeld, 26, was buried in Kochav HaShachar in Samaria early Wednesday afternoon after he succumbed last night to bullet wounds from Palestinian Authority terrorists.

Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) chairman and Minister of Education Naftali Bennett was among hundreds of people at the funeral.

He called Rosenfeld “a symbol of the State of Israel, which salutes you.” Bennett quoted Psalms 18:37 to say, ” I have pursued my enemies and overtaken them, never turning back until they were consumed.”

Kochav HaShachar Rabbi Ohad Krakover called on the government to respond to the terrorist attack be strengthening a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria. The murder of Rosenfeld was the third loss in the family. His older brother Naftali, an Air Force pilot, died in 2002 in an accident, and his uncle was killed while he was in the army in 1978.

Malachi’s father Eliezer is widely known as a clarinet player who performs at weddings.
He cried at the funeral, “What did we do wrong?

There others were wounded in the attack that has not been condemned by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

The IDF believes that the murder, unlike several “lone wolf” attacks, was carried out by a terrorist cell that is responsible for previous attempts to kill Jews.

Rosenfeld and his friends were returning from a basketball game in a vehicle when the terrorist opened fire in a “drive-by” attack near the community of Shiloh. He was evacuated by helicopter, but doctors were unable to save his life.

The attackers pumped more than a dozen bullets into the car and continued firing until the driver turned off the road towards the community of Migdalim and the passengers called for help.

The IDF still is looking for the terrorists, who arable to travel freely on the highway with no checkpoints except at the security fence, part of “good will measures” instituted by former Defense Minister Ehud Barak and continued in the Netanyahu administration to bolster Abbas’ position.

Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been dead silent on the Arab terrorist’s murder of soldier-hiker Daniel Gonen and the wounding of his friend Friday afternoon.

The United States express its condolences, while the United Nations envoy to the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov simply condemned the murder and stated:

On this second day of Ramadan and at the start of the Shabbat, I call on all sides to exercise the utmost restraint, to maintain calm and promptly bring the perpetrators to justice.

When State Dept. spokesman John Kirby was asked about the murder at the daily press briefing on Friday, he answered:

We have scant information. First of all, our condolences go out to the family of what we understand to be at least one of those individuals who was killed in this deadly shooting. Certainly, our thoughts and prayers go out to them. And the second thing I’d say is, as always, we condemn any violence against civilians there, completely unacceptable.

And on the Palestinian Authority side?

No regrets. No condolences. No renouncement of terror.

Mahmoud Abbas did not condemn the murder nor did he comment on it, and the Palestinian Authority’s official WAFA website referred to it only in a posting under the headline:

Newspaper Review: Fatal Shooting of Israeli near West Bank Settlement, Quarter Million Worshippers Praying in Al-Aqsa Mosque as Focus of Dailies

Abbas has a handy excuse. He can always say. “They did it.”

Who is ‘they?” Hamas, of course.

The terrorist organization took responsibility for the attack, as WAFA noted. Hamas stated: “One of the fighters ambushed a settler vehicle and shot at them from point-blank range after having observed the area continuously.”

Hamas then explained that the attack was a continuation of “a series of operations…in retaliation to occupation crimes” against “Palestinian martyrs who have recently been killed by Israeli forces including Izz Addin Abu Gharra from Jenin and Abdullah Ghanayim Gneimat from Kafr Malik near Ramallah.”

The statement identified the “Marwan Qawasmeh and Amir Abu Eisha Brigade” as the affiliated group directly behind Friday’s shooting, adding that “the operation was carried out days before the first anniversary of the martyrs Marwan Qawasmeh and Amir Abu Eisha,” who kidnapped and murdered three Israeli yeshiva students last June and were killed in a shoot-out with the IDF.

WAFA, Abbas’ official mouthpiece, whitewashed the terrorist attack and stated:

Palestinian factions and groups released statements following Friday’s attack deeming the incident as a natural response to ongoing Israeli occupation.